My name is Joseph Bella, and I am Majoring in Technology Education. (I am going to become a technology teacher…for some reason, people miss that.)
I was first introduced to Lord of the Rings a few years ago when I went to see the Return of the King in the movie theaters. From there, I was told that there were two other movies, and a series of books, too. So being the reader that I was (I’ve since run out of time for liesure reading…) I picked up The Hobbit, and read through all 4 books within a month and a half. I really enjoyed the story and the time-setting it took place in; I’m a medieval fiend (ie swords and cavalry, etc). The regal language also appealed to me for some reason. So much so, I even spoke like that for a while after reading all the books.
I’m both excited and worried about this class. Every Language or Reading class I’ve taken thus far has utterly destroyed the books we were assigned to read. I wholeheartedly believe that no author writes a story with the intent of having it picked apart in a classroom untill there are nothing but analyzed shards of what was once a good book left behind. So I hope this doesn’t occur with Lord of the Rings — I enjoy this story, and I want to keep it that way.
So, I’d like to explore the relationships between the movie and the novel: Why the films left certain things out, or why they rearranged parts of the story. I’d like to explore some of the characters as they appear both in the books and in the movies. Gandalf, for instance, was extremely watered down in the movie. In the Return of the King movie, he lost all hope and despaired that it would only be “a matter of time” before Sauron took the ring from Frodo…he did EXACTLY the opposite in the book. So I’d like to look more deeply at that.
I DON’T want to explore why Tolkien wrote the book, or what things in his life made him write it…that’s what destroys stories for me.
I’m mildly interested in Harry Potter. I used to be fanatical about it…but I felt that J.K. Rowling failed miserably in the seventh book. I mean, I’ve read all six previous books 3, 4, maybe 5 times over…I’ve read that one ONCE — and I haven’t touched the others since………….
Joseph Bella? August 28, 2008, at 07:41 PM
